Gyaan.in logo

A few weeks ago I had announced that I’m starting work on a new project called Gyaan.in (the domain is currently redirecting to a parking page while we work on it). To give a quick recap, Gyaan.in will be launched soon as an initiative to promote quizzing in Delhi and provide a platform to quizzers to carry forth discussions on a far more versatile platform than Google Groups or Yahoo! Groups (this is what most quizzing societies in India use these days).

We seek feedback from the community. There are a few logos which we have come up with and would like have your feedback on which would be the best to go forward with.

1. Gyaan.in logo with ¿

The first logo here was made by me. The idea behind the Indic script is to give that ‘Indian’ touch. The Spanish inverted question mark is used to replace an ‘i’. There were loads of other suggestions such as pencils, books, lightbulbs, etc which are kinda overused. The inverted question mark though would be quite distinctive. It does look a bit ‘plain’ but the idea behind this was that a two-colour thing would look good even when printed in black & white, or on merchandize such as T-shirts.

I asked from inputs from others who’re active participants (Prateek, Karmanya, Vishesh, Chirag, Rishav) – and Vishesh came up with a few modifications.

2. Gyaan.in logo with flipped question mark

His first modification uses a mirror image of the inverted question mark and completes the bar on top of the letters. In all other aspects the idea behind the logo is the same. Please note that for both logos (this one and the earlier one) the colour of question mark is open for change.

3. Gyaan.in logo with gloss (plain background)

4. Gyaan.in logo with gloss (coloured background)

Vishesh came up with two other interesting ideas, which keep the logo the same but add a bit of gloss to the logos. The second one of the two even uses a coloured background. While these would be good for using online, it may be a problem to print these in monochrome on paper or on clothing. (We could use these as ‘official’ badges which members can display on their blogs / websites though. These two should definitely look good on-screen.)

Help us out. Which logo do you think we should use? Do you think we should change the colours used in any of the logos you think we should use? What about having different looks for logos and badges? Or do we need to completely rethink the logo. Leave your comments here simply choosing a logo number – and if you feel like it with further feedback on your choice. We’re listening.

Update: LimeIce has given a distinctive redesign to the logo, without using Indic fonts. What do you think?

5. Logo rethink by @LimeIce

Update 2: Vishesh has sent in some updated logos. I think logo 2 in set 1 would look good with an orangish gradient bar over ‘n’, but not over the inverted question mark. For monochrome printing purposes we’ll just flatten it to one colour. You may need to click through to the full size image to see the gloss properly.

6. Logo Set 1 by Vishesh

7. Logo Set 2 by Vishesh

Update 3: Everyone has been so helpful with the feedback. Thank you to each and everyone! :) Based on the responses I got here, on Twitter, via email / IM / phone I find that most people support the second logo. Vishesh implemented the suggested change to set 1 logo 2, and here we have it. This one’s almost final now…

The new logos by LimeIce seem nice, but the rooted Indian feel is missing from the second one. The first one too looks like the logo of a revolutionary movement rather than a quizzing related portal. No offence to LimeIce, amazing work done! I in fact needed someone to do my Twitter background.

Hmm. Point taken. BTW, you wanted some pointers on making a Twitter background right? Depends on which minimum resolution you want to target for. If 1024×768 is minimum then you can use only 120px on left, but that’s way too narrow to convey information. Use something around 250px on left for data. Height of content on left can be kept to around 350px. Don’t use right/bottom since they vary too much. Blend your Twitter background image’s color with Twitter profile backround color, otherwise it’ll look odd on widescreen monitors. You can try twitbacks.com for making free background pics. They add their own logo but you can Gimp it out if you want.